M A I N   N E W S

2 killed, 20 hurt in Jammu bus blast

Jammu, October 2
Suspected militants set off a bomb in a bus near Jammu on Wednesday, killing two persons and wounding 20, the police said. The bus caught fire after the blast near Jammu, the winter capital of Kashmir.

"Two persons were killed, 20 injured, four are serious," a police officer said, adding that no one had claimed responsibility.

Eighteen persons died on Tuesday in a series of militant attacks in four districts of Jammu and Kashmir, where voting is under way to choose a new state government.

The dead included eight persons on a bus in Jammu province who were fired upon.

Some 620 people have died since the elections were announced in early August. A final round of voting is scheduled for October 8.

Meanwhile, a top Jammu and Kashmir police official indicated that the terrorist attack on the bus might be a handiwork of Lashkar-e-Toiba and Jaish-e-Muhammad militant outfits.

"Terrorists belonging to Jaish-e-Mohammad and Lashkar-e-Toiba were responsible for most of the these incidents (which took place before and during the polls)," Jammu and Kashmir DGP A. K. Suri said.

"There is a desperation among terrorist outfits as the response to the Jammu and Kashmir elections has been tremendously good," he said.

"The explosive device had been kept on the fuel tank of the bus, and the vehicle caught fire after the explosion," Suri said. Agencies